Susan Chen, "Susan Chen: Purell Night & Day," 2023. Photo: JSP Art Photography. Courtesy of the artist and Rachel Uffner Gallery.
OUTSIDE LA: Susan Chen
Rachel Uffner Gallery
by Annabel Keenan | Aug 9, 2023
After three years of experiencing artwork, exhibitions, podcasts, and news reports related to Covid-19, it seemed there could be nothing left to consume that is new, inspiring or even interesting. Enter Susan Chen. In a surprisingly refreshing and engaging solo show, she pays homage to one of the everyday objects that rose to become both a prized possession and a symbol of protection during the pandemic: the Purell bottle. In “Susan Chen: Purell Night & Day” at Rachel Uffner Gallery, Chen’s new paintings and drawings depict the bottle over and over again, making light of the subject and treating the mundane object with comical reverence and curiosity.
Elevating everyday items to the status of art, through seriality, is nothing new. Andy Warhol’s soup cans spoke to rampant consumerism and the homogenization of American society. Wayne Thiebaud ruminated on commonplace confections emblematic of indulgence and Americana. While mundane and ubiquitous, Chen’s choice of subject is something different altogether. The Purell bottle experienced a dramatic change of identity in the last three years. What once symbolized cleanliness, sterility, and perhaps germaphobia, before the pandemic became a precious material as Covid-19 spread throughout the world. Bringing tragedy while also stoking fear and panic, Covid-19 led to individuals and families frantically arming themselves with any object deemed remotely protective or essential. Toilet paper was scarce, grocery stores rationed certain items, and businesses—in particular producers of alcohol—began making their own hand sanitizer as stores quickly ran out. On-brand Purell facetiously became a status symbol. I received a bottle for my birthday in 2020 as a joke that quickly proved to be the most useful gift of the year.
Without these associations, Purell has returned to the mundane image it used to be, which Chen now lifts to the status of art. Highlights of the show are two large clocks in which every number is a small pastel depiction of a bottle, alluding to the dystopian reality we faced where health and cleanliness preoccupied our days. Titled Purell Clock: Night and Purell Clock: Day (both 2023), the two works are installed in a corner in the gallery, one on each side, enveloping the viewer.
Limiting her subject, Chen gave herself the difficult task of keeping the viewer’s attention across a vast parade of bottles. The artist, it seems, embraced this challenge, pushing the limits of her own practice by experimenting with new materials, including charcoal, soft pastels and foam. With varying textures and color palettes, each bottle has its own mood ranging from dark and foreboding to perky and optimistic. In some images, the bottle appears anthropomorphized, as if the nozzle and straw make up an emotive head and neck.
While the bottle is the star of the show, Chen deviates slightly in Purell Tower (2023) with an image of a face—presumably the artist’s—sitting atop a mountainous pile of bottles. At 58 by 25 inches, the oil painting on linen is by far the largest in the show with all other works measuring 12 by 10 inches and smaller. Two of these smaller works flank Purell Tower, emphasizing the difference in scale. The figure’s expression is soft, yet inscrutable as she looks to the side over the shoulder of the viewer. As installed in the gallery, the figure is gazing towards the two Purell clocks, perhaps checking the time with a sense of acceptance and determination. While bottles pile up below her, she remains strong and perseveres despite the circumstances.
In “Purell Night & Day,” Chen has done something completely unexpected. She has allowed the viewer to laugh, grieve, and reflect on the distance the world has come from the days in which a plastic bottle of hand sanitizer symbolized a global pandemic. If Chen had staged the show three or even two years ago, the bottle would still have been laden with this symbolism. It would have been a reminder of the times, almost taunting the viewer about the reality we faced. Instead, the show is a bookend. The period in which an un-sanitized hand felt like a contagious health risk is over. What does remain is the fact that it happened at all, and that is why Chen’s show is so powerful. The Purell bottle might be mundane once again, but there was a moment very recently when it had a completely different status. Chen reminds us of this moment in the form of an invitation to move on and navigate post-pandemic life, whatever that might be.
